


His Favourite Place

by lauraxtennant



Series: Ten/Rose Collection 2014 [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 20:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauraxtennant/pseuds/lauraxtennant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose visit a particularly peaceful place rather often, and it is there that a great number of firsts occur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Where do you want to go next?" the Doctor asks Rose casually one morning.

It’s been barely three weeks since she started travelling with him when she replies to his question with a question of her own. She wants to know: where is his favourite place in the universe?

He looks up from his position half-submerged in the grating, not expecting that as her answer. Regarding her with a tender, curious expression, he murmurs, “It’s not that exciting.” And he’s somewhat apologetic, because he is aware of just how much he enjoys impressing Rose Tyler, and how he would hate for her to find something he shows her to be dull as dishwater.

"I don’t care," she replies, her eyes lighting up with excitement anyway. "Tell me."

"There’s nothing there," he continues, shrugging a shoulder. "No people to meet, no great monument to visit; nothing happens and the only sound is the rustle of leaves."

"Doesn’t sound like somewhere you’d like to visit," she muses.

"Even I like a bit of peace and quiet now and then, Rose Tyler."

"Well, all right then. Sounds different," she says, tilting her head to the side in contemplation. "Good different. Take us there?"

He beams at her with that daft, goofy grin of his and jumps up to set the coordinates.

When he opens the TARDIS doors upon their destination, they step out onto a terrain of plum-scented verdant grass.

"Wow," she whispers, her eyes widening in awe at the sight in front of her. "This is definitely the most beautiful place you’ve brought me so far."

There is a green, grassy hill and at its base there is an amethyst lake that elongates for miles and miles and miles. There is a slight whisper of a breeze in the air, a breeze that caresses them like a soundless song. Rose is entranced, enthralled, enraptured. It is so, so beautiful.

His breath hitches slightly at the glorious smile on her face, and all at once his favourite place in the universe becomes theirs.

He takes her to the spiralling oak tree that sits upon the hill surveying the silent kingdom below. And he’s right — the only sound in this whole place is atop that hill, sitting beneath that tree, under the rustle of the silver leaves.

He is sure to sit as close to her as possible, and this includes slinging his arm around her shoulders to tug her against his side. He does this so casually that he thinks he’s fooled her; fooled her into thinking that such an action is inconsequential and does not mean what it might mean were he a boy her age sitting with her in front of a cinema screen. In truth, it does mean that, and so much more. He needs her there, a reassuring presence, right in his arms. He needs her there like he’s never needed anyone, and that scares him.

He listens to her breathing softly against his jumper as she stares at the colour and wonder of this beautifully hidden pocket of the universe that no one has touched. No one has been here to spoil the scenery, or to exploit its resources, or to deforest or burn or command.

And he considers that maybe this place and she are the only things he himself has touched and not spoilt. He wonders, with no small amount of fear and trepidation, how long he will be allowed to cuddle her close like this before the universe catches him and tears her away. Or how long he will get to keep her before she realises he ruins the things that mean the most. How long he’ll get to keep this wonderful, courageous human girl before she leaves.

And it is there, barely three weeks after he first laid eyes on her, that he realises that he might be falling in love with her. She blinks up at him with those big, brown eyes and he loses sense of time for a while, and simply gazes back at her. It feels as if the air between them ripples with an electric pulse, a connection that is intangible forming between them, a bond growing and growing that will not be stopped or interfered with. A friendship that he knows, knows he wants to keep forever.

He is glad she likes it here just as much as he does. Oh, she loves the adventure and she’s brilliant in a crisis, but here, here, is where they can just…be. And she’s so gorgeous in these quiet moments, and she places her hand between his hearts, and she lets him hold her there next to him as if they’re together even though they’re just friends and will likely always be just friends. And he marvels at this pink and yellow girl, because she fits so effortlessly into his world that he struggles to believe she’s only just fallen into it.

They leave imprints in the grass when they stand up, the only evidence of disruption in this peaceful sanctuary, and he smiles.

::

It’s there that he spills his secrets.

It becomes a regular trip. Often they go there after the most difficult days, when they need some quiet to contemplate, some recuperation time. Sometimes they go on a whim, when she wakes up in the morning and decides it’s a day for a picnic in the sunshine on their favourite world. He doesn’t mind — in fact, he cherishes these moments, and actually cherishes them even more when their frequency increases, because it means more moments to spend staying still for once, which he is surprisingly quite happy to do when it means Rose Tyler is lying beside him with her hand in his, staring up at the purple sky.

And she makes him tell her things. She doesn’t pressure him or anything, it’s just, she asks a question or two and looks at him with those eyelashes and that bottom lip and he sort of divulges things he doesn’t mean to. It’s like she compels him to talk without even saying something herself. How does she do that? He does not know. But he speaks, and she listens, and he realises that it’s good to share the weight of the world, the burden of the universe, with someone who actually cares.

He doesn’t tell her everything, of course. He makes the fatal mistake of forgoing informing her about regeneration, for instance, because he doesn’t expect that she’ll ever have to see him change. He’s not long had this big-eared, leather-jacket-wearing body, after all.

And it’s not like he expects her to understand it enough to stay with him if he did. Others have, of course — others have stayed with him after he regenerated during his travels with them. But he feels how different things are between him and Rose, quite different from anything he’s had with another friend. She just gets him, so completely, and he thinks that the unbreakable bond between them _would_ become severed should he ruin that well-established trust by changing into a new man. He’s not sure if Rose would be able to let this him go, if he became someone else. He’s not sure she’d stay.

He’s wrong, though, because he often is nowadays. He cannot yet quite grasp the fact that someone, least of all someone as wonderful as Rose, could love him like she does. He does not deserve it.

He is a man who has killed millions upon millions. Time-locked the Time War and burnt Gallifrey out of existence. A Time Lord, a soldier, a killer. He cannot forgive himself. He cannot deserve love.

He does not deserve it.

(Rose Tyler disagrees, and silently loves him so much that she can hardly breathe half the time, let alone voice it. After all, she doubts it is possible for the Doctor, the greatest, most courageous man she has ever known, to fall for a silly, insignificant little human girl like her.)

"What’s this, Doctor?" she asks one day, lying next to him on the grass, holding up a strawberry-shaped but peach-coloured fruit from their picnic basket.

He opens his eyes, turns his head towards her and does not look at the fruit at first, just stares at her. Then she brings the fruit to her lips, and it's within his field of vision, so he sees it, sees her bite into it, sees the orange juice drip drip drip down her chin, and he fights against the overwhelming urge he has to reach out with his thumb or with his tongue and swipe the juice away.

It’s okay though, then, because she wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and takes the temptation away herself. Or maybe enhances it, for of course, he still wants to kiss her, perhaps even more so now than just a second ago. He gets the feeling that as more and more seconds go by in Rose Tyler’s company, he will desire a kiss from those lips at an exponential rate.

"Doctor?" she prompts, before taking another bite. A bigger bite this time. His hand clenches around the grass.

Drip drip drip. The orange juice on her lips reminds him of the skies of Gallifrey.

Without meaning to, he tells her this, and the look she gives him, and that kind smile she sends in his direction, warm his soul. How does she do that?

(He does not ever tell her the name of the fruit. In her head, she simply associates it with an orange-coloured sky and says no more about it.)

She notices the tension in his shoulders, the intensity in his blue eyes, and moves the picnic basket out of the way. She moves closer, and holds out the rest of the fruit to him, offering him a taste. He nods briefly and lets her when she feeds it to him herself. He chews slowly, eyes on hers the entire time.

His hand unclenches from the grass and the tension in his shoulders dissipates and all at once it seems so very simple, and he reaches his arm out to her and very nearly pulls her down for a kiss. But she thinks he’s just offering a hug, so she snuggles into him, burying her face into his green jumper. His arm closes around her shoulders and he holds her to him, and sighs into her hair, thinking that this will always be enough. And it very nearly is.

::

It’s there that they have their first proper kiss.

The shock of his regeneration has not made her leave. He is so very grateful that she was the first thing he saw when he changed. He is so very grateful that she is the first person he sees every day, when she wanders into the console room after a good night’s sleep in her bedroom on the TARDIS.

She has stayed, and they are content, mostly. It’s been three months since that Christmas and they have frequented their favourite planet several times.

This time is the most defining, however. It is here, today, that words are almost said, and decisions are definitely made.

"Are you happy, Rose?" he asks her quietly. She is sitting a short distance away from their tree, and she is facing away from him, staring ahead, silent, her fingers twirling a piece of grass around and around.

He amends his statement. “I mean, I know…I know you’re not _happy_ happy, because - because of Mickey leaving and everything, but - ” He swallows hard. It has been four days since the parallel world and the Cybermen, and so for four days there has been a noticeable lull in his and Rose’s usually noisy, easy, flirtatious friendship. “Are you still happy enough to stay with me? Do I - do I - " He closes his eyes and rests his head back against the rough bark. “Do I make you happy?” he finishes in a murmur, half-hoping she will not hear him so that it removes the chance of her saying no.

He opens his eyes again when the air shifts slightly. The speed at which she turns around to regard him with a strange expression tells him she has heard exactly what he has said. “Doctor…” she begins, and her voice is shaky, and that — that’s very not good, he thinks.

He waits for her to continue, but she seems frustrated with herself, as if she cannot find the words, and he aches to take away that sadness behind her eyes. He watches, breath held, as she begins to crawl towards him. As she gets closer, he slowly releases his breath, hoping she will not notice the hitch to his voice as he murmurs, “Rose?”

She is silent, still, and sits next to him, drawing her legs up and holding them against her chest. He sees the stains the grass has left on her knees and smiles a little, reaching out to touch the mark on the knee closest to him. “Whoops,” he comments lightly.

She looks at him, and her hair falls in front of her face. He brushes it away for her and tucks it behind her ear, and finds her smiling when he checks her expression. “The TARDIS will fix them for me,” she answers him. “She’s good to me like that.”

"That she is," he agrees. It is true. Not just in the trivial sense of fixing up Rose’s jeans when they get too dirty from alien grass or, in the worst cases, slime, for a normal Earth washing machine to contend with. But in every sense. The TARDIS has a unique and mutual fondness concerning Rose Tyler that the ship has never really had before with a person who isn’t the Doctor.

He is not baffled by this. After what Rose and his TARDIS did for him, uniting as the big bad wolf to save him, he can hardly pretend nonchalance to their attachment. Besides, the TARDIS knows him. Knows his feelings for this woman and knows how much he needs her. It's not surprising that his ship desires her presence with them as much as he does himself.

"You make me happier than anyone," Rose finally answers, and — shocked by the frankness with which she makes this confession — he is startled.

He tugs at his ear, a newfound habit he is not aware that she finds adorable.

"It’s my fault one of your closest friends is in another universe, though," he reminds her regretfully.

"It isn’t your fault, don’t be daft. I’ll miss him, but he made his own choice. I was just being selfish to try and make him stay, knowing right well that he and me would never be how he might still’ve wanted us to be." She lets out a long breath and breaks the Doctor’s gaze. "He can move on properly now, and that’s good."

"And," the Doctor starts carefully, "You and I?"

She unwraps her arms from around her legs and shifts sideways and down, until she is lying perpendicular to the Doctor with her head pillowed in his lap. She looks across the grass and at the horizon, rather than up at his face. “I’m staying with you forever,” she reassures him.

He rests one palm against the top of her head, his fingers submerging into her soft, shiny hair. It is a gesture of protection, acceptance, light-hearted possession. He places his other hand lightly on her stomach, pretending the smoothness and warmth of her thin, cotton t-shirt is her skin against his. He is saying yes, please do. I will take care of you as you take care of me, and we can make each other happy. 

"I love this place," she says softly.

He strokes through her hair and replies, “Me too.”

"I love that you shared it with me."

He smiles, slowly and widely. “Me too.”

She shifts, turning her head to look up at him at last. “I love…” she trails off in a breathless whisper.

He stares intently into her eyes, his hand moving to cup her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek. “Me too,” he whispers back. And then, slightly trembling with both nerves and happiness, he leans down as she lifts up, and presses his lips to hers.

::

It’s there that they make love for the first time.

Taking things slow, it seems, finds its place in the Doctor and Rose’s life quite spectacularly. It always has, in a way; for as much as they run across the stars together and jump from one adventure to the next at a rapid pace, when it comes to the acceptance of their developing relationship they have never been quite as hasty. After all, their first proper kiss occurs one year, three months, and four days after her first moment aboard the TARDIS, though they wanted it far sooner.

One would think they’ve had enough of postponing the inevitable by now. Yet as much as they both want more, a waiting game commences, in which much kissing is present but a progression to much nakedness, or even just a little, is not.

After a certain adventure renders Rose temporarily faceless, however, they come to the mutual decision that life’s too short to waste any more time.

They are beside one another, their backs to the grass, staring up at the cloudless, starry sky.

"It’s so peaceful here." She murmurs this obvious statement tentatively, and he is aware that something more is to follow, so he stays silent, awaiting her next words. She turns her head to watch him carefully, and he does the same. Staring into his eyes, she continues, "Feels like we’re the only people in existence."

"Well, here, we are," he says, just as quietly. "We have this whole world to ourselves. We always will."

"I hope so," she whispers. Her hand inches across the space between them and he seizes it with his own, entwining their fingers tightly. She looks down at their joined hands; smiles a secret smile to herself.

"Rose."

She looks back up at his face at the sound of her name. “Yeah?”

"You scared me."

"I know. Scared me, too. Thank you for saving me."

"You don’t need to thank me," he says, reaching his free hand between them to cup her cheek. He swallows his nerves. "There’s this compulsion I have, you see, that makes me strive to protect you. So it’s really quite inevitable."

She laughs, as he intends her to do. Intends for her to do every single day of her life.

"But Rose," he whispers now. "I was so frightened that I wouldn’t be able to save you in time." He lets out a long breath. "Last time I was that frightened…" he trails off; does not vocalise it. Hates to vocalise all the times he’s nearly lost her.

"Did you think I might be faceless forever?" she asks him gently, a hint of teasing in her tone but mostly earnest.

He closes his eyes at the suggestion. “Let’s not even think about that,” he replies.

Rose lets go of his hand, and he is confused, so he opens his eyes again - but it is okay; she is merely rolling onto her side, shifting closer to him. She rests her head against his shoulder and trails her hand up his chest, before splaying her palm between his hearts.

"I can feel both hearts beating," she whispers. "At the edges of my fingertips."

He drops a kiss to her forehead and lets his lips linger there for a while. He is able to do that, now. The kissing thing is still relatively new, but oh, he loves it. In fact, once he’s thought about kissing her at that very moment, he can’t help but shuffle down a bit, to brush his nose against hers and seize her lips in a proper kiss.

Her hands curl around his tie and, distracting him with her enthusiastic bout of snogging him back, she manages to remove it before he notices. His eyes widen as her hands brush across his torso, making him shiver. “Rose,” he murmurs, voice rough as he pulls back from their kiss. “You do realise we are outside, yes?”

"Yes," she smiles cheekily, and doesn't stop her hands wandering down his chest, touching the buttons in contemplation.

"So you do realise that if you’re planning on us…here, as in, outside, it would be very, very naughty of you indeed…"

Her eyes sparkle at him in defiance and she untucks his shirt from his trousers. “We’re the only ones here,” she reminds him pragmatically, and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Not like we’re gonna be caught and arrested or anything, is it?”

"Well, no," he relents, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"And you have to admit that this place would be the perfect place for it to happen," she continues, dancing her fingertips through the light hair on his chest.

He swallows thickly and nods. “It’s very special to us, after all,” he murmurs.

"Exactly," she smiles.

He reaches for her top, pulls it over head swiftly. Rose unclasps her bra and he helps her discard it carelessly behind them. He swallows hard at the sight of her bare chest, and leans closer. “Rose, I…”

"Mmm?"

He doesn’t finish his sentence. Instead, utilising his very efficient tongue, he begins mapping parts of his universe that he hasn’t discovered yet.

::

It’s there that they make plans.

"Where are we gonna go next?"

"Ooh, I fancy a spot of sightseeing in the constellation of Madari. There’s this planet there, Rose — oh, it’s brilliant! It’s called Gendoopocos — isn’t that a fantastic name? Gendoopocos — anyway, they have these pineapples there, well, they aren’t really pineapples but they look like pineapples - "

And another day -

"Doctor, can we go to Hollywood?" she asks, rolling onto her front, onto his chest, and staring up at him beseechingly.

He runs his hand down her naked back, then up again, before resting it in her hair, cradling her head. “Are you going to run off with a film star?” he asks her lightly.

"Only the good-looking ones," she responds, flashing him her tongue-between-teeth smile.

"Well in that case…" he growls, tilting his head as he rolls them over so that he can quickly capture her lips with his.

And then - 

"Maybe we should check out the 1980s again," he ponders, thinking about the various outfits she’s worn on visits to that decade.

"Yes!" she agrees enthusiastically. "Oh, I’d love that. And then can we pop in and visit Freddie again?"

He heaves a put-upon sigh. “Oh, I s’pose so.”

"Thank you," she whispers.

"You are very, very welcome," he whispers back, wrapping his arms around her.

But -

The Beast’s prophecy lurks in the corner of his mind, and it mocks him. He realises that some plans he must partially make on his own, in his head, for fear she would suspect something’s wrong if he voiced his every thought. And so on this particular morning, he clears his throat to make an announcement. “One day, I’m going to take you to the province of Nara on the planet Ciria, which is located in the Bruair system, ooh, about seven thousand light years away from your solar system.”

She smiles sleepily and slings an arm comfortably around his waist. “What’s there?”

"Hmm?"

"Nara," she clarifies, through a yawn. "Why would you like to take me there?"

"Oh," he replies softly, gazing up at the sky. "Just because."

"Shall we go there next?" she asks.

He lets out a long sigh. “No, no. We have to wait.”

"Why do we have to wait?"

He looks down at her as she looks up, and smiles a slow, quiet smile. He feels wistful, feels his hands tremble slightly as he thinks of a future he still isn’t sure he deserves but one he wants with every molecule of his being. “Because…”

"Yeah?"

He does not answer her, but kisses her instead. He does not speak another word until she’s slipped into sleep beside him, her head tucked safely in the crook of his neck, her steady breath blowing like an incantation of promise against his skin.

"We’re not ready yet," he tells her sleeping form. "We’ve got so much more to do, so much more to see. But when you’re a bit older, and when we’re ready, and if you want me to, I’ll take you to Nara. It’s a lovely little place." He presses a kiss to her hair. "I’ll buy us a house and everything. Maybe we’ll pop to Barcelona first and get a dog with no nose. We’ll be happy in Nara. It’s a little like Earth, and a little like Gallifrey, and a little like neither, and it’s the perfect place to sit still for a while. You’ll see."

.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s there that he tells her about his family.

They’ve just been to the Olympics. They spent days there, soaking up the atmosphere, watching events, eating junk food. And now they’ve decided to come to their place of respite, in order to recuperate.

Rose is lying on her belly, watching the Doctor snoozing as she plays with a few blades of grass. She decides that now is the time to tentatively broach the subject that’s been playing on her mind since the day of the opening ceremony and Chloe Webber’s drawings.

"Doctor…"

"Mmm?" he murmurs in reply, keeping his eyes closed. She clears her throat nervously, and shuffles closer to him. He blindly grapples for her hand, and squeezes it in reassurance. "Say it, Rose. Whatever’s bothering you. I’m listening."

She gapes at him for a moment, because she still can’t believe he knows her so well. Then, she gathers her courage, and says, “You said you were a dad, once.”

His eyes flutter open and he stares at her for a few seconds in surprise.

She sees him swallow hard and quickly adds, “I was just wondering, if you, um…if you wanted to talk about it. If you don’t, then that’s fine. You know, if it’s too painful. I don’t want to hurt you by bringing it up, it’s just…well. I’m curious, I s’pose.”

He nods. “Okay,” he says slowly, thinking that perhaps he would actually like to share this with her. As much as he’s kept this aspect of his life hidden before now, he knows how good she is at making him feel better about things, and realises that maybe it wouldn't be too difficult to share his past with her a little more.

"Yeah? Are you sure?" she whispers.

He nods again. “I think I am, yeah,” he smiles softly. “Where shall I start?”

She shrugs. “Um…” She pauses, thinking it over. “Okay, so let’s start with how many.”

"How many?"

"How many children."

"Oh, I see. Just the one," he answers, and if he squeezes her hand a bit too tightly then she’s certainly not going to point it out, not if it’s helping him. "A daughter. And subsequently, a granddaughter."

Rose’s eyes widen. “Wow.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Does knowing I’m a grandfather put in perspective how old I really am?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Don’t worry. You still look about thirty-six, so I’m not bothered.”

"So superficial," he teases gently. "Anyway. They’re both gone now, obviously. During the War - " he cuts off, unable to continue that sentence.

Rose shifts even closer to him, so that he can wrap an arm around her shoulders. They lie back together on the grass. “You don’t have to talk about that bit,” she suggests quietly, and he’s grateful.

"Susan, that’s my granddaughter, she travelled with me for a while, actually," he tells her next. "In my early days with the TARDIS."

"Sounds like she had a bit of her grandfather’s wanderlust," Rose smiles.

"Yes, I rather think she did," he laughs softly. "She wanted a proper English education, you know. Went to school there for a little while and everything."

"Really?"

"Yep. Of course, she was far too clever to fit in amongst her contemporaries."

"Of course," Rose agrees.

"But when she met — well, her soul mate, I suppose — she decided she didn’t want to travel with me any longer." He sniffs, inhaling deeply. The smell of the plum grass and Rose’s shampoo makes him smile again, though, and he continues, "I suppose from then on, that’s all I ever expected."

"How do you mean?" Rose questions.

"Well, I’ve travelled with lots of people over the years, but I never expect them to stay all that long. They soon find something, or someone, else, and that’s — obviously, that’s good for them."

"Not so good for you."

"I suppose not. But I can’t exactly begrudge my friends’ happiness, can I? Just like I couldn’t begrudge Susan hers. The thing was, I wanted to have her travel with me because I hadn’t done very well with the whole being-a-father thing with my daughter. So I thought I could make it right by looking out for her daughter instead." He sighs. "I wasn’t the nicest of people back then."

"What about…" Rose starts, then trails off hesitantly.

"What about what?"

She bites her lip before continuing. “Um. Well. What about your…wife?”

"Oh," he says, in surprise. "Oh, we weren’t — it wasn’t — marriages were arranged, Rose. Neither of us had any real interest in one another, much to the eternal disappointment of our daughter. I left as soon as I could. Ran away to the stars." He shakes his head at himself. "Thought myself too young to be tied down like that. I really was no better than any human man who walks away from his family because he can’t take the responsibility."

Rose is silent, for a while, and he worries. Worries so much that his assessment of his younger self has disappointed her that he jumps in to reassure her, “I like to think that I’ve grown up a lot since then.”

She gives him a wry smile. “Have you though?”

"Yes," he insists, a touch offended at her dubious expression. "I was just…unhappy. Restless. I’m not either of those things any more." He gives her a meaningful look but she’s already glanced back up at the sky. He wants to tell her that he’d never leave her, but he’s not sure if she’s in the right frame of mind to hear that right now.

"Do you regret not making a go of it with your wife, even though the marriage was arranged?"

He shrugs. “Maybe if I’d stuck around long enough I would’ve learnt to love her. I don’t know. Maybe for the sake of our daughter I should’ve tried. Then again, I don’t think she loved me either. In fact I think she resented the fact that she’d married a renegade. I was always getting into trouble with the Time Lords, you know. Being put on trial and the like. Not because I’d hurt anyone; just because in trying to help people I’d often go against Gallifreyan laws. The Time Lord High Council didn’t approve of ‘meddling.’ Well, that was their official line. Of course, they didn’t mind ‘meddling’ when it was for their own gain, but that’s another story.”

She turns on her side and regards him thoughtfully.

"What?" he asks, fearing she’s judging him and coming to conclusions he doesn’t want her to come to.

"Nothing," she says, and gives him a peck on the cheek. "Thank you for sharing this with me."

"Oh," he murmurs, not expecting her to say that. "Um, that’s okay. In fact, I think it helps, talking to you." He realises, in this instant, why that is. The way she looks at him. Her warm eyes that he realises, now, are not — have not been, will never be — filled with recrimination or judgement.

"Good. I’m glad," she smiles. "Anything else you want to talk about?"

"That’s that, really." He heaves a sigh. "Rose, I wasn’t a particularly good father and I never really took the chance to get to know my daughter. I’ll regret that forever. If I could turn back time…" He gives a helpless shrug. "But I can’t. And telling you, having you know this — no one else alive does, you get that, right? That no one in the universe knows me like you do. And I just…I need you, Rose. Just by listening and being you, you help me. You always have done."

Rose squeezes his hand tightly. “I…Doctor, I…”

He tilts his head to nuzzle her nose. “I know,” he whispers. “And I’m so grateful for that.”

"Do you think you’d ever - " she begins, but she does not finish.

He hears what she was going to ask anyway. She may profess to dislike children now, but as she gets older, he reckons that could change. She’s the caring, compassionate, nurturing sort, his Rose. The maternal thing might spring upon her and then she could want a baby. Her half-question shows she even suspects this herself. And what she’s trying to ask him is whether he’d want a family again.

"Yeah," he breathes out roughly, and they are both surprised a little that he’s confessed this. He used to think that when Gallifrey burned and everyone died, that part of him died with them. But perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps Rose is the person who’s meant to show him that. "Yeah, I think I would."

Nara, he thinks to himself. If they go to Nara they could have that, have a family, and be safe. The vision squeezes his hearts tightly in hope. A house that stands still, the TARDIS in the back garden, a dog with no nose, and a pregnant Rose. He smiles. It almost sounds like a fairy-tale.

"I think I might want one too. Not now. Not any time soon, either. But maybe, in the future," she admits quietly.

"Good."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"We could…that could happen?"

He turns his head, watches her bite her lip uncertainly. “Yes,” he tells her, and the amount he desperately wants to keep this promise shakes him to his core.

::

It’s there that he almost asks her to marry him.

The ring is inside a velvet box in his pocket that matches the purple sky above them.

They’ve just been to a planet with rays flying through the sky and he asked her how long she is going to stay with him. She met his eyes and said exactly what he hoped she would say, exactly what he wants. He almost asked her there and then; but then she glanced away from him, back to the horizon, and he bottled it, the moment lost.

Now, they’ve got a plate of chips in her lap and a bottle of white wine next to them, and she’s sitting between his legs with her back against his chest. He alternates between nuzzling the top of her head, nibbling the shell of her ear, and stealing a chip. Rose places her hand over his where it rests on her thigh and they sit together like this for ages, until she suggests they open the wine.

It isn’t long before both of them are pleasantly tipsy. The wine is Dreosian, their favourite, and it’s no secret that Dreosian white wine is quite potent. The chips are all gone. He runs his fingers through her hair and she turns in his arms to face him.

"I just want to say," she murmurs, slurring only very slightly, "That I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be right now than here, with you."

He grins at her, warmly, lazily. “Likewise, Rose Tyler.”

She tilts her head forward and he does, too, and so they kiss for a few moments, unhurried and gentle and he aches with his love for her, and with sorrow, too, because what if this is taken from him, what if he loses her, what if he —

She makes a little sound into his mouth, her arms twining around his neck, and he rolls them over so that her back presses into the grass. “Never leave me,” he whispers against her neck, as he moves his mouth there to suck and nibble and tease.

"Never," she insists firmly, tugging at his hair. He groans and she kisses his temple, his cheek, the line of his jaw.

He skims his hands down her sides, and she shivers beneath him. “Promise me?”

"I promise."

Her words, they always sound so sure. He loves that. He slips his fingers to the hem of her top, and tugs upwards, arching away from her so that there’s room between them for her to move it off the rest of the way. Once the fabric between them is discarded, his lips descend to her sternum, and the way he mumbles in Gallifreyan as he moves his mouth across her skin makes tears come to Rose’s eyes.

After, they stay entwined together, bare but for the moonlight dancing shapes and shadows across their skin. She murmurs something sleepily as she dozes with her head on his chest.

"Hmm?" he asks, because he hasn’t heard her properly but he’s sure she said something important.

"I said," she replies, through a yawn, "That I love falling asleep like this."

He smiles. “Naked? In my arms?” he asks cheekily.

"Don’t sound so smug," she retorts, poking his chest half-heartedly.

"I’m just very, very happy."

"Yeah." She sounds dubious.

"I am!" he insists, then kisses the top of her head. "This is my favourite way for you to fall asleep, too."

"All right," she giggles tiredly.

He tightens his arms around her, giving her an affectionate squeeze. “I love cuddling you. You’re so…cuddly.”

Silence.

Then…

"I’m going to be nice and not take that to mean that you think I’m fat," she mutters magnanimously.

"What?" he replies, confused. "Of course that’s not what I meant. Is that — did I — am I not meant to refer to you as cuddly? Because I meant it in the most loving way possible, Rose. Because you’re all warm and soft and cosy and comfy and I -"

"It’s all right," she laughs. "I know."

He sighs in relief. “Good.”

"Where are we going tomorrow, anyway?"

He thinks for a few moments, watching his hand stroke her arm tenderly. He thinks of how nice this feels, holding her close; thinks about how he wants to do this for as long as possible. He thinks of the storm that’s surely approaching, about how maybe he does not have enough time to wait it out any longer. “I think I’ll take you to Nara tomorrow,” he whispers into her hair.

"Yeah?" she replies, her eyes opening, excited to see the mysterious place he mentioned so many months ago.

"Yes," he answers, his voice firm. He knows he will. He has to. And then, when they are there, they can talk things through. Check that she definitely wants what he wants. Make sure that she knows how much he loves her. "Yes."

::

It’s there that the sound of her voice and her laugh and her happiness permeates every corner of his consciousness and fills up every corner of this world.

Until -

Tomorrow turns out to throw up another distraction. He curses under his breath because he wants to just go, to run run run as fast as they can to Nara, to shake off the Beast’s prophecy, to shake off the storm, the sense of doom just around the corner. But they can’t, because he’s the Doctor, the last of the Time Lords, and he wishes now more than ever before that he wasn’t. Why can’t he just leave the universe to fend for itself for once? Why can’t he be allowed to just take the woman he wants to marry and have a future with to a planet far away and let himself be happy?

He sets the coordinates for Nara, planet Ciria, the Bruair System. Rose steps into the console room, flutters her eyelashes, and asks if they can go and see Mum for a bit. He glances at the console. Of course he has to take her where she wants to go. He also has to ask her what she wants. If he takes her to Nara now, they’ll only have to make a trip to see Jackie later anyway. He may be planning on taking her to a planet seven thousand light years away from Earth, but it’s not as though he’s not going to ever bring her for visits to her mum again. He wouldn’t be so selfish. He reckons in his head that he’ll designate a day of Nara’s eight-day week to visiting Jackie and that’ll make him stick to his promise of taking her back.

But for the moment, he nods, agreeing to a visit now instead. And she smiles happily and bounces off to her room to pick up her rucksack of laundry and that gift she bought for her mum on the planet Draaa the other day.

He changes the coordinates with a sigh. Still. The Powell Estate is relatively safe. It’s fine, he rationalises. Everything’s going to be fine.

They will visit her mum and then he’ll take Rose to Nara and maybe he’ll even tell her how much he loves her. They can outrun her destiny and carve a new one for themselves, with a house and a Barcelonan dog and maybe, perhaps, eventually, a family. Yes. Yes.

What really happens next is the reason why a Time Lord should never make plans for the future, especially plans that he makes on his own. Nothing is certain, not for someone like him, not for a couple like them - least of all a happy ending.

::

He loses her.

It’s there that he sits, staring out over that purple sky and its matching lake, lost in memories of her. Memories of her golden hair and her wide, awed eyes. Of her beaming smile and her sorrowful tears. Of the light in his life that was her, and her giggle that echoes in his mind.

He remembers the way she’d danced in the rain at the bottom of the hill. And the way they’d made love in the moonlight under this very tree. And the way he’d held her close and let her set up a home in his hearts.

He wishes he could relive those moments all over again, not just in his memory but in real life, with her here, with her in the same universe again, the same world. He wishes that his hopes for the future, the plans he had secretly made here, had come true.

And he breathes shakily, his hands clutching the grass either side of him, trying to calm himself down, trying not to let the anger rise. He comes here because it’s tranquil and soothing, because the scent of her lingers in this spot in which they’d cuddled together so many times. He comes here because everything reminds him of her, and who he was when he was with her, and who he is now because he is not.

He comes here and he thinks and thinks and thinks. Trying to figure out how to get her home. How to bring her back without destroying everything.

But if you were to listen close, you would not hear the cogs turning in his mind, or his breathing, or the echo of a song in the air.

The only sound is the rustle of the leaves.


End file.
